Secrets of the Flesh
by snowflake07
Summary: Every scar, every blemish tells a story. Some are gained through the course of life while others are sculpted in.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, I just like to play with characters a little. Bleach and its characters belongs to Tite Kubo.**

A/N: I had a difficult time deciding whether I should weave this into the plot of Just a Little Wrinkle because it builds on the same idea. Ultimately I decided to make it a stand alone, drabble-type thing. As always I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors. I tried my best with editing. Reviews are like candy, they make me smile.

* * *

Secrets of the Flesh

It wasn't so bad, he supposed; sharing a life with this woman. Being bound to her soul. She was never boring. That much was certain. She managed to surprise him in every capacity. From the simplest things such as the ingredients she chose for dinner to the most complex, such as the two tattoos she now proudly sported.

He had always known, even in Hueco Mundo, that she'd had a penchant for preserving memories. The woman had a strong conviction to preserve memories, pieces of the few individuals who had touched her life deeply. She kept mementos of these individuals in all parts of her life. A toy truck given to her from a child she took to the local park when he needed to get away from neglectful parents. Her judo skills borne out of fierce friendship from the dark-haired girl with a stronger than average reiatsu, Tatsuki was it? He could even sense bits of reiatsu sealed into the scars of the battles she'd fought.

He can still sense that shinigami taichou on her, the one that followed Aizen with chilling silver hair and an equally chilling smile. When had she been so close as to be scarred by his reiatsu, he didn't know. But, he had seen the look on the female shinigami fukutaichou's face when she sensed it on the woman. Surprise followed by guilt and shame, then anger, and finally nostalgia. He'd noted the tears that shimmered in the fukutaichou's eyes, how she had kept close proximity to the side where the taichou's reiatsu seemed strongest. When Ulquiorra had questioned Orihime, her answer for why was simple but equally mystifying.

"It's the only piece of him she has; left. And after what he did for her...it's so sad that the two of them were left with nothing. I know it's not much, but it's all I have to give her—to say thank you. "

To thank her for what? The fukutaichou had been pathetically weak in the winter war, in battle and in love. The woman's actions made no sense.

While the purpose of his existence was to devour her, she _consumed_ him in a manner that was maddeningly effortless. She pulled and cloyed at him. He could feel her working her way under his skin, a persistent presence in his mind. What would she do next? Would her pulse increase? Would her pupils dilate? Her nostrils flare? If they did was the response out of fear? Desire? _Love_? How could these- _did_ these emotions dictate her actions, her rationale?

How burdensome to have encountered someone like her. At times he wished he could discard her from his consciousness, simply cast off that about her which made him feel this way. But that was the crux of the whole thing- if he could only name, could only determine that which intrigued him so. If he could just identify that _something _about her…

But even that was not enough. Identification simply wasn't enough; he sought to _understand_, to know her intimately. It was a reaction that manifested itself on the physical level as well as intellectually. His skin itched, he was restless. He burned low in his gut for her, so visceral a reaction did she draw from him.

But the tattoos, at the moment they intrigued him most. They teased and tortured him eliciting responses and feelings in him he did not fully understand. How could something so unremarkable as ink carved and bled into the skin provoke such a primitive response? So strong was it that it seemed to rival the bond they shared, one between souls.

Each one called to him. 'Snow bunnies' was how she referred to the first. Two bunnies side by side with identical scarves. One with hair clips analogous to hers adorning each ear. A few intricate snowflakes fell around them, each one a different design and shape. The whole design was nestled just to the right of her left shoulder-blade, over her heart.

The other was far more powerful in its ability to enrapture him. Ulquiorra would find himself staring at it, fingers itching to trace across it. He had done it often enough, in their more intimate moments, watching as she shivered beneath him, goose bumps dimpling her flesh. It was devastatingly simple, nothing more than a series of patterned bumps. However, with this particular tattoo, it was the coloring. It was green - a shade that could seemingly shift to coincide with the time of day, the onna's moods, even the position of her body. It complimented her eyes, at times bringing out the different hues of sterling, quicksilver, and charcoal that intermingled throughout her irises.

This tattoo was settled over her breast at the juncture her heart opposite its partner on her back. It teased him. It made his loins burn for her as its light green jade shimmered on her skin in the sunlight and drove him over the edge as its emerald hues glittered in the candle light.

_Murcielago_

It was a secret in plain sight on her skin. The name of his most prized possession. A name known by few, a name that almost all of those few had taken to with them in death. The only thing he'd owned for centuries; the part of his soul that he broke off so that he would not walk alone. His only companion during those times there had been no sight or sound –no words to carry any feeling other than loneliness; other than despair. The only thing to combat the emptiness.

Then had come the onna. She balanced herself with the essence of his soul; the key to his very existence.

He had been angry initially. It seemed a crass, juvenile move on her part. Something a child would do out if defiance or on a night of heavy drinking. When he'd asked her why she done it, her answer had not been that much different from the one she gave for the shinigami fukutaichou. He'd felt something akin to jealousy. If her answer was so similar what was different about him? What made her consistently choose to give herself to him?

_"Do you remember that night in Hueco Mundo when you told me about what your life was like before you came to serve Aizen? It stayed with me. Even during my time there the most awful thing about it was that sense of loneliness. But I kept thinking of you; how you had lived it so much longer. And even now, with this…arrangement between you and me…When I die it might come to pass that you are alone again, if only until I'm…" _Orihime didn't finish her thought. It was endearing to him to watch her trip over words, to grapple with the adult concepts—actions she was more than ready to take but not to voice. "_I wanted some kind of physical reminder, some kind of proof just for you and me that contradicts that. To show we were, _are_ not alone, that your life was not empty." _

At some point during her brief soliloquy she'd began unbuttoning her shirt. Her hands had reached for his own and he'd remember thinking how warm she was. How her warmth seemed to flow from their point of contact through to his chest, radiating from the inside out.

_"Do you love me Ulquiorra?"_

She rode above him in all her glory, her hand on his cheek and her hair a fiery waterfall shutting out the rest of the world. He stared back at her dumbfounded.

_"It's alright; you don't have to answer that. I'm not sure myself anyways. But I think I could, I think I might,"_ she said kissing the corner of his mouth.

The things she whispered in his ear when he was enveloped within her, when she was drawing out the very essence of his soul!

Love. How was he to know if he loved her? Love was a thing he'd never felt, a thing he had never known nor given in return. Love was something she gave to Kurosaki. Five life times worth of it, if he recalled correctly. A thing Kurosaki had died for twice… for her.

Ulquiorra understood his body's physiological response to her. It took very little exertion on her part to ignite desire in him. Her voice, her scent, a furrowed brow could impel him. Lust and love, however, were very different things. Lust was tangible, plainly evident. But love?

Was it love that made copulation with her so pleasurable? Was it love that drove him to make sure she was tucked safely in bed at night? Was it love that compelled him to comfort her when her nightmares chased sleep away? Was love the reason he ached for her when she was gone? Was it love that made him want to prove he was more worthy of her than the substitute shinigami? Was it love that made him secretly pleased that she was his, that she had chosen to give _him_ her soul? Was it love that made him content that she had dominion over him? Was it love that made him do things for her he would do for no one else?

And was it love that made him both fear and dread the day her soul would depart this world and leave him behind? Was it love that made his greatest fear that of a life without her?

The answers to many of those questions he was not yet ready to face, and certainly not yet ready to voice, least of all to her – she who could flay him so effortlessly. She would have no answers today. Today, he would take pleasure in all that she selflessly offered to him. Today he would escape the nihilism. He would lay his head upon her breast. He would shiver as her fingers tangled in his hair and pressed along his scalp as she cradled his head. Today he would place his lips over the jade tattoo that stood sentinel to the mystifying organ he sought so hard to understand. He would shudder and gasp as he climaxed with her, clinging desperately to her –to life.

Tomorrow he would face those same questions and struggle with those answers and their meanings. He would look forward to tomorrow. Ulquiorra would again pause, reflect, and conclude again.

No, sharing a life with this woman was not so bad.


End file.
